Kentucky Flu Season Officially Underway

Kentucky has recorded its first two confirmed cases of flu for this season, one of them in Henderson County.

The two cases of influenza are no indication of how prevalent flu will be the next several months. The other flu case was reported in Jefferson County. State epidemiologist Craig Humbaugh says the flu bug is not an ailment which spreads from county to county necessarily.

“ I think it’s just starting in different pockets of the state and that’s not unusual," he says. "We usually report sporadic activity and then later what we call regional activity before we move into widespread activity across the state. That’s the typical pattern for our flu season each year."

Health officials recommend everyone over six months of age should be vaccinated. Humbaugh say protection can come through a flu shot, a nasal spray, or a relatively new injection method just under the skin.

“All these that we’re talking about have components that are against the three types of flu that we think will be circulating this year and there’s also some vaccine that’s available that is what we call quadravailant and it’ll be covering all three types plus a fourth type,” he says.

Humbaugh says the flu hit early last year and hung on well into the spring. But, the state health official says what happened last year has no bearing on what might occur this flu season.